Those of you who participate in Wikipedia articles may wish to make a little correction in the Connors page. In the fourth paragraph there is this sentence:

[...] His career win-loss record of 1243277 (81.77%) is third after Bjφrn Borg (82.7%) and Ivan Lendl (81.8%)[..]

That's wrong. Actually Connors is second in this category, not third. They are comparing it to Lendl's rounded up to 81.8. You could say they are both at 81.8. But if you wish to keep splitting numbers (why not?) and round it up to the next place, then Connors is ahead of Lendl by 2 hundredths of one percent.

Borg 608-127 = 82.72
Connors 1243277 = 81.78
Lendl: 1071-239 = 81.76

You could say this is extremely anal, but you would be pots addressing a kettle. Aren't we all monsters of anality around here? And I am more of a Lendl fan, by the way. But smudging numerical truth should not be tolerated.

These are the W/L records (year-by-year, followed by the cumulative or career record at the end of each year) for Connors, Borg, McEnroe, Lendl, Federer and Nadal, which are the players with the best numbers in the open era in these categories, especially Connors. The numbers are based on the ATP site. It doesnt imply that I view this category as more fundamental than others, and I still think that Sampras is in the top 3 (or perhaps top 2) in the open era, in spite of the fact that his numbers in these departments would not match up well with these players. For some reason, the 90s did not produce great numbers in this department. Whereas Connors, Borg, McEnroe and Lendl were at home with cumulative percentages in the mid-80s for much of their careers, once they retired we had to wait until Federer for anyone to even break 80 at any point. Connors record in particular is very striking. On 9 different years, he ended the year with a higher career percentage than anyone in the open era has ever attained at any point in their careers. Whereas no player from the 1990's ever reached the 80% mark in career percentage at any point, Connors spent 23 years with a career percentage above 80. If he had retired at the age of 38, he would have retired with a higher total career percentage than Borg.

I may do some revisions later based on DC records that seem to be missing from the ATP in the 1970s, which would affect mostly Borg. When introduced, it appears that Borgs 608-127 final record will go up to 638-130, and so his final percentage would change from 82.72 to 83.07. McEnroe would go from 875-198 to 883-198, and his percentage would move from 81.55 to 81.68. This would imply no change in their standing in this category, but it would have a slight effect on the peak career percentages in some years.

Say you are looking at the open era from the perspective of someone in 1982. You see the 80% career mark being reached pretty regularly every 3 years or so. You think it is a common thing for the top players.

Connors broke that mark in 1974. Then Borg in 1978 (or rather 1977 when the DC record is included). Then McEnroe in 1979. Then Lendl in 1982. And they never dropped back below that mark through their careers.

Then this regularity is broken after 1982, and there is 25 year wait until Federer reaches that mark again in 2007, followed by Nadal in 2008. It looks like Djokovic will break it also this year.

Similar thing with single year percentages above 90%. In the 16-year period from the beginning of 1974 to the end of 1989, such percentages occurred a total of 13 separate times -- almost every year. Then there is a 14 year hiatus until Federer does it again in 04, 05 and 06. Then Djokovic in 2011.

What to make of something like this is not clear. In the 70s, 80s and 00s, the best players of each respective decade got there. Not so in the 90s.

Were these anomalies due to the fact that they had stronger competition in the 90s, or was it because they were less dominant?

Say you are looking at the open era from the perspective of someone in 1982. You see the 80% career mark being reached pretty regularly every 3 years or so. You think it is a common thing for the top players.

Connors broke that mark in 1974. Then Borg in 1978 (or rather 1977 when the DC record is included). Then McEnroe in 1979. Then Lendl in 1982. And they never dropped back below that mark through their careers.

Then this regularity is broken after 1982, and there is 25 year wait until Federer reaches that mark again in 2007, followed by Nadal in 2008. It looks like Djokovic will break it also this year.

Similar thing with single year percentages above 90%. In the 16-year period from the beginning of 1974 to the end of 1989, such percentages occurred a total of 13 separate times -- almost every year. Then there is a 14 year hiatus until Federer does it again in 04, 05 and 06. Then Djokovic in 2011.

What to make of something like this is not clear. In the 70s, 80s and 00s, the best players of each respective decade got there. Not so in the 90s.

Were these anomalies due to the fact that they had stronger competition in the 90s, or was it because they were less dominant?

That's a damn good question. It is clear that the greatness of a player is strongly linked to the playing conditions, especially when some feat are clustered in a short amount of time. For example, the careers slams we see now (I guess we will see another soon) are allowed by the surfaces homogenization.

But why nobody couldn't reach very high winning percentage in the 90's? Let's make some hypothesis:

1. The idea of a stronger competition that before make sense, as tennis developed itself a lot in the previous decades. The "journeymen" were more accomplished than before, which made it harder to be a second tier player, which means they were better and made it harder for the top tier to dominate them. The weakness of this hypothesis is that the 90's field was relatively strongly divided by surfaces. Mainly, the idea that a harder competition leads to better players at the top is valid if we are considering level in absolute value, but it cannot explain the difference between the top tier players and the second tier players: why would it be easier for a player competing against weak opponents (in absolute value) to become strongly better than them, than it would be for a player competing against strong opponents? Which means: how is the domination linked to competition strength.

2. The two players who had the means to do it didn't do it for "fortuitous" reasons. Sampras was focused on winning slams, he had the best chance on faster surfaces, so he focused on faster surfaces and didn't care to really try on clay and in the smaller tournaments. Agassi had his motivation issue and never realized his true potential. They prevented other players to do it (although I don't see who else could have done it, even if they weren't there).

3. Unknown reasons led to an overall weak field in the 90's and early 00's.

Similar thing with single year percentages above 90%. In the 16-year period from the beginning of 1974 to the end of 1989, such percentages occurred a total of 13 separate times -- almost every year. Then there is a 14 year hiatus until Federer does it again in 04, 05 and 06. Then Djokovic in 2011.

A small qualification on the bolded part. It actually happened a total of 14 times (not 13) but two of those instances were in the same year (1977, Vilas and Borg) so it's still 13 separate years. As far as I know that was the only year in the open era when more than one player had percentages above 90 for the year.

A small qualification on the bolded part. It actually happened a total of 14 times (not 13) but two of those instances were in the same year (1977, Vilas and Borg) so it's still 13 separate years. As far as I know that was the only year in the open era when more than one player had percentages above 90 for the year.

The statement in the last sentence is wrong. It hapened also in 1978 (Connors and Borg).

Those of you who participate in Wikipedia articles may wish to make a little correction in the Connors page. In the fourth paragraph there is this sentence:

[...] His career win-loss record of 1243277 (81.77%) is third after Bjφrn Borg (82.7%) and Ivan Lendl (81.8%)[..]

That's wrong. Actually Connors is second in this category, not third. They are comparing it to Lendl's rounded up to 81.8. You could say they are both at 81.8. But if you wish to keep splitting numbers (why not?) and round it up to the next place, then Connors is ahead of Lendl by 2 hundredths of one percent.

Borg 608-127 = 82.72
Connors 1243277 = 81.78
Lendl: 1071-239 = 81.76

You could say this is extremely anal, but you would be pots addressing a kettle. Aren't we all monsters of anality around here? And I am more of a Lendl fan, by the way. But smudging numerical truth should not be tolerated.

Hi, can someone who regularly updates wikipedia please change the above on Jimmy Connors page so it is correct?